Gone: A District 12 Love Story
by Rosa Louise
Summary: Gale, Katniss, and Peeta struggle to make sense of a world that rules over their lives with fear, hatred, and isolation. This is an unflinching account of a love transformed in the crucible of war, shared between three people, each essential to the movement to restore justice.


**Gone**.

_A District 12 Love Story_

By Rosa Louise

_I had to do it. At least once._

Gale's parting words resounded in her head. She watched him walk away, the world seeming to move in slow motion. She opened her mouth to call after him, to reassure him that he was the only one, that if she could she would give up everything and run away with him, just as he asked her so many months ago.

But her instinct to survive overcame her passions, and all those words, those unspoken hopes, those improbable futures, died in her throat.

Instead she let him walk away, allowing herself only one small whisper to escape her lips.

_Gale._

His burning mouth on hers. His kiss betrayed his fears and revealed to Katniss the truth of her feelings. She was overcome with despair, hating Gale for unlocking the desire for him deep inside her, hating herself for having any attachments at all.

What was the point of her knowing that her true heart resided with Gale? Why now did he kiss her, just as she knew that life with anyone but Peeta was impossible?

She was leaving tomorrow on tour, under intense scrutiny by President Snow. It was sick, she decided, sick that she must be made to perform this farce before the whole world while her true love watched on. Katniss dropped her head into her hands. She saw the face of innocent Rue, the shocked expression of the boy from District 1 dropped dead from her arrow, Cato as he pleaded with her, mutts ravaging his body, Glimmer's dead body oozing green liquid…Katniss awoke with a strangled cry, looking wildly about her. She had fallen asleep in a chair in the living room.

Filled suddenly with anger, she rose quickly from the chair, turned, and violently upended it in frustration. She had lived through these events once; must she live them over and over again in her dreams? Shaking, Katniss felt desperate for some relief, some escape from the madness of her existence. She looked up, towards the door, her mind reaching sunlit woods and retreating prey, the feel of cool river water in her hair, the smile of a gentle friend. Her heart yearned for him, she felt suddenly that her life had contracted into a singular idea: She could not bear one more second without Gale.

Hurriedly, she pulled on her leather jacket over a long-sleeved shirt and laced her boots. She ran out the door, not caring that it was past curfew. She moved swiftly across the silent town, the moon lighting her path as she avoided peacekeepers. Katniss stopped for nothing. She refused to leave without letting him know how she felt. She could not abide by the idea that the Capitol would threaten her and probably follow through with their threats all while she lived their lie. If she was to die, if she was to give up her life at the behest of the Capitol, by God she would have this one night with Gale.

Breathing heavily, she reached his small house on the other side of the Seam. She opened the window, and crept inside his room. A beam of moonlight rested on his sleeping features: his strong straight nose, shadows created by long eyelashes on his cheeks, his full mouth. Katniss lay a hand on Gale's back.

He awoke with a start, suddenly gripping her wrist. She muffled a gasp of pain.

"Katniss!" he exclaimed, releasing her immediately. "Are you insane? What are you doing here?"

She looked at him, her gaze deep and unreadable. Before she could lose her nerve, she grasped his face in both her hands and pressed her lips to his.

"Follow me," she whispered and, leaving as swiftly as she entered, escaped into the moonlit night.

After only a moment's hesitation, Gale threw on a shirt and his hunting jacket, setting out after her silhouette darting through the trees. He knew where she would go. During her days in the arena, he went to their place on top of the hill, overlooking the lush, desolate valley. He could not watch as she suffered in the games. Even worse, in what he suspected was a move to gain sponsorship, she engaged in a televised romance. The person on the screen became a stranger to him. He had always hated the Games, but they had taken someone he cared about and made her dance for them, forced to live out a lie for their sake. The thought made him burn.

He once imagined a life with her, more days of living off of the woods, maybe surrounded by children. He was no fool. That future died the moment she stepped out of that arena with him.

But tonight he was chasing her, and tonight he would catch her. Tonight he would not let her go. After a silent race through the woods, Gale reached their clearing. She was already there, though still hidden in the trees, her dark hair gleaming in the moonlight, the line of her throat milky white and inviting. He had never seen her like this, yet in this moment, he understood her perfectly. He stopped in front of her. Her gray eyes, pools of sadness, swirled with intensity.

They were but two silhouettes, framed by black trees, against the gentle white moon and an open midnight sky.

"Gale."

That single word, fallen from her mouth, was enough to spark a rage of feeling in him. Two shadows became one as they reached for one another.

Closing the space between their waiting lips, with the inevitability of a locked door, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. He held nothing back, delivering his passion in slow, measured moments. She needed this, he knew, maybe even more than he did. He would make it last for her. Katniss held him tightly, trying to tell him all the things she had wanted to say but could not express. Her heart swelled fit to burst as he opened her mouth with his tongue, tasting her, knowing that he would not stop, that they would see this through to the end. Their end.

Katniss found her back pressed into a tree as Gale pushed forward, grinding his hips against her. He quickly slipped her jacket off, pressing his teeth against the curve between her neck and shoulder. He showed no shame in where he touched her. His hands, so delicate in the art of trapping prey, were rough now in his urgency to hold every inch of her.

She never knew she could feel such abandon, how delicious, how _rebellious_ it could be. The thought of her and Gale, on eve of the Capitol's tour, touching each other in the open air without a shred of restraint, sent electric waves of desire through her body. Now she would truly be the girl on fire.

Without breaking their kiss, he reached and pulled the length of twine restraining her braid. He buried his hand in the billowing locks, using his grip on it to pull her face even closer to his. She responded with a tiny sigh of surprise. The sound was so unlike her, it almost unnerved him, but as she gave another, unbelievably sexy little moan while he dipped his tongue into her mouth, his member became so hard he nearly lost his head.

After their long years of friendship, Gale thought he knew everything about Katniss. Before this, when he felt the stirrings in his body whenever she smiled or drew close to him, he could picture himself touching her, her eyes flashing, her kiss deep and serious. But he realized the girl in front of him could still surprise him. He never imagined that his Katniss, who shoots down prey with deadly accuracy, Katniss with fire in her sad eyes, Katniss that shies away from any physical affection, could respond with such raw, sensuous energy. The idea made him want to never stop exploring her, to never stop searching for the center of her tangled being, to never stop hunting for her secret places.

She broke the train of his racing thoughts with a passionate bite to neck. Snapping back to reality with a growl, he tipped her head back with a hand placed just above her throat and sucked hard on her neck in retaliation. He was relentless in this treatment of her amidst breathless gasps, licking her throat, nipping her skin, grabbing the tight curve of her ass. Feeling her body starting to spasm with pain and pleasure, he moved his hands to her thighs and lifted her, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she continued to kiss him, surrounded by her sweet-smelling hair.

Secure in his arms, Katniss ripped her shirt over her head and dropped it to the ground, the cold no longer a factor in the wild heat of their embrace. As she held onto him, he removed his large hunting jacket and set it on the ground, the only barrier between them and the frigid earth of their home.

Gale placed Katniss gently on the jacket and held her close, his lips never leaving hers, the back of her head resting on his strong arm, his fingers cupping her face. He broke apart from her only to pull his shirt away from him. She pushed her hand up his muscled torso, toned from long days in the wood and hard work in the mines. By the time her wandering hand reached the firm line of his shoulder, she was no longer wearing a bra. He began to kiss her differently now: soft, little kisses on her eyes, her cheeks, her neck, her heaving chest, while his rough palm clasped her right breast. Gale let her squirm a little, infuriating her with his feather-light touch.

Before she knew it, his mouth closed over her nipple, and she was overwhelmed by the sensation of his flicking tongue. Gale's hand traveled down her abdomen until it reached the band of her pants. He stopped there, massaging the skin right above her pelvis, until she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Katniss," he said softly against her lips, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he lowered his head to kiss her lightly, over and over. "Do you want me to keep going?"

She stared at him intently in the moonlight, a beam of it resting on her face. For a moment he froze, suddenly unsure of her answer. Would she go like she always does: the elusive bird, gone suddenly from his life in a gust of cruel wind and with the beat of her own desperate wings?

Before he could worry any further, she kissed him and said in her low, matter of-fact voice, "I want to do it all with you."

He looked at her, her eyes glinting with all sorts of mischief, and didn't break her gaze until he softly brushed his lips against hers. Simultaneously, he slid his hand underneath the waistband of her pants. Encountering the fabric of her underwear, he began to rub her slowly, feeling the material dampen as her arousal grew. He rubbed her a little harder, and decided he might as well ask her while she was a little distracted.

"Did you ever do anything like this with…him?" He refused to say his name.

Katniss met his inquiring gaze while he still played with her down there, pressing on her, making her open her legs. She shook her head, her breath hitching a little as she struggled to speak. "No, we did nothing like that." He probed her further, letting his fingers graze the slick skin underneath her panties, "You never even thought about it?" Katniss let out another whimper, her eyes glazed over with desire, her concentration slipping.

"I didn't want to…" She gasped a little, his fingers moved deeper. Giving herself over to the sensation of his clever hand, she couldn't help but tell him truthfully, "…I was still thinking about you."

That was exactly what he needed to hear. Pulling aside her panties, he inserted two of his fingers into Katniss as she let out a sharp cry. His palm already slicked with her wetness, he fingered her inside her pants until she was shaking and he could feel the walls of her pussy contracting around his hand.

Gale could tell she was close and decided he would let her come this way, not caring if he didn't meet his end at all.

Her torso rested inside the crook of his arm and he looked up at her, immersed in her struggle beside him. Flicking his fingers inside of her in a motion he knew would send her over the edge, he branded the image of her inside his mind: neck tipped back, mouth open, calling to the sky, bare breasts heaving in the moonlight, her hair lifting in the breeze.

Her thighs began to shake and she felt a delicious heat pooling inside of her. Gale's fingers never stopped, reaching a spot deep inside her that she was unfamiliar with. As he probed it with erotic dexterity, Katniss felt the pool of liquid fire burst to the ends of her hands and feet, burning straight into her mind. Each wave sent her to a new peak of bliss, and it was a while until she realized that Gale still had his arms wrapped around her, quietly holding her in their small part of the forest.

Just as she opened her eyes, a shooting star flared up in the cerulean night and was gone.


End file.
